The present invention relates to a process for recovering the waste liquid that is produced from the distillation of rice liquor, and more particularly to the recovery of a nutritious product.
In the production of rice liquor, rough rice (or brown rice) is usually used as the raw material. As shown in FIG. 1, the production of rice liquor involves the processes of soaking, cooking, cooling, saccharification and fermentation of the raw materials. The fermented product is then distilled to yield raw rice liquor. After aging for a period of time, rice liquor is blended with a suitable amount of alcohol and then filtered to obtain the finished product. However, waste liquid or dregs are produced during the distillation of the fermented liquor. As a result, a process is required to treat these wastes to comply with effluent standards.
Conventionally, the waste liquid from the distillation of the fermented liquor is treated with a biological treating process. As shown in FIG. 2, the biological treatment mainly consists of three steps, i.e., a pretreatment, a secondary treatment and an after treatment, wherein waste slurry is produced from a regulating pond and a primary sedimentation pond in the pretreatment, a biological treating device in the secondary treatment, and a final sedimentation pond in the after treatment. The waste liquid treated by the conventional biological process conforms to effluent standards, and the slurry is subsequently treated with a slurry treatment that includes the steps of dehydration, drying and incineration. As mentioned-above, the conventional process for treating the waste liquid from distillation in the production of rice liquor is complicated and costly.